Climate change adaptation is a pressing global challenge that requires the same level of urgency and careful planning as mitigation. Yet, adaptation often takes a backseat in climate policy discussions. Without a justice-centred approach, adaptation policies risk harming the very populations they seek to protect—exacerbating inequities and redistributing climate risks rather than alleviating them.
Justice in Adaptation
To appropriately address the needs of the most vulnerable, justice must be at the core of climate change adaptation efforts. Integrating justice considerations into adaptation efforts can prevent maladaptation, enhance the effectiveness of policies, and protect the most affected communities. As indicators are being explored within the Belem work programme across priority sectors, it is important to prioritise justice metrics in adaptation efforts to ensure that no one is left behind.
The growing recognition of the concept of ‘Just Transitions’ among diverse stakeholders has shown the power of aligning climate action with social equity and fairness in the mitigation realm. However, this justice-driven approach has yet to be fully embraced in the adaptation space. Bridging this gap is essential to ensure that such strategies are comprehensive, inclusive, and equitable, aligning with the needs of those most vulnerable.
This is where the concept of Just Resilience comes into play—an approach to climate change adaptation that prioritises social equity and justice. Centring justice in adaptation can ensure that resilience-building efforts benefit all communities equally, with particular attention to those at most risk.
At Climate Strategies, we have been advancing this conversation through a series of events exploring justice in adaptation (Just Resilience), including a dedicated side event at COP29. These engagements brought together key insights from stakeholders engaged in Just Transitions and Adaptation. Drawing from these discussions, as well as recent publications from the South-to-South Just Transitions project, we have selected the following key and cross-cutting messages on advancing justice in adaptation.
1. Place Justice and Equity at the Core of Adaptation
Policymakers frequently overlook the importance of centring justice within adaptation and mitigation strategies. Justice, equity, and fairness must be foundational in international adaptation efforts. Without addressing the interplay between inequality and vulnerability, adaptation is downgraded to a technical task, meant to focus on isolated aspects of climate impacts. Just Resilience ensures that adaptation frameworks acknowledge and consider the social and environmental dimensions of resilience, breaking the vicious cycle where inequity increases vulnerability and vice versa.
2. Address Structural Inequities
Effective adaptation efforts must confront the root causes of vulnerability, such as poverty, social exclusion, and marginalisation. Focusing on comprehensively addressing drivers of vulnerability is key to protecting affected populations. Our research in Kenya shows that tackling historical and systemic injustices, like land dispossession and discriminatory policies, is crucial for a just and resilient society.
3. Design Locally Relevant, Context-Specific Policies
Adaptation strategies should be grounded in local political and social realities, adapting to local knowledge and cultural practices, as well as leveraging Indigenous knowledge systems. To do so, the voices of marginalised groups, including small farmers, women, migrants and Indigenous communities, should be considered in adaptation planning. Community-driven approaches, like those being practised in Bangladesh, prioritise disaster risk management, agriculture, and energy, showing the significance of tailoring solutions to the needs of communities.
4. Implement Policies that Combine Bottom-up and Top-down Approaches
Locally-led adaptation initiatives are essential for addressing on-the-ground realities, but they must also integrate broader justice considerations to be effective. A balance between bottom-up and top-down approaches to adaptation is important, as strategies at the national level can offer more holistic perspectives that address cross-cutting needs and opportunities for diverse communities and entire regions.
5. Ensure Transparent, Data-Driven Processes
One of the biggest challenges identified from South-to-South research is the significant lack of transparent and accurate data on the impacts of adaptation efforts on people’s livelihoods. Real-time data collection and standardised metrics can prevent maladaptation and improve accountability while ensuring that adaptation policies reflect actual identified needs.
6. Adopt Holistic Approaches to Just Resilience
Research in the Global South shows that maladaptation is more likely to occur when decision-making is not based on holistic approaches that consider the interplay between climate risks and drivers of vulnerability. Vulnerable populations experience climate impacts alongside their economic, political and social realities. Adopting a holistic approach that considers all dimensions with social justice at its core, can foster resilience that truly leaves no one behind.
7. Ensure Equitable Access to Climate Finance
Accessible and flexible climate finance is crucial for addressing both the justice and technical dimensions of adaptation. Justice-focused funding can empower local communities to address root causes of vulnerability, such as systemic inequities, ensuring social inclusion, or participatory decision-making. Flexible finance directed toward community-driven projects strengthens adaptation initiatives from the ground up, ensuring that resilience efforts are inclusive and effective for those on the frontlines, including grassroots communities. In addition, transparency in climate funding, through greater visibility into where and how resources are allocated, can build trust and empower communities, which is key to fostering resilience.
8. Build a Shared Understanding of Just Resilience
A shared understanding of Just Resilience is essential to embedding justice, fairness and equity at the core of climate adaptation efforts. By addressing historical and systemic injustices, prioritising the voices of the most impacted communities, and enabling a much-needed alignment between stakeholders across different levels and sectors, adaptation efforts can empower communities and reduce vulnerabilities.
The Road to Just Resilience
As adaptation continues to rise on the global climate agenda, now is the time to ensure that justice moves from the margins to the core of these efforts both in the mitigation agenda and the adaptation agenda. Focusing on putting justice in adaptation at the centre presents a unique opportunity to address long-standing systemic vulnerabilities and historical injustices, empowering communities whose needs must be urgently prioritised. All of this, of course, should the government commit to a much-needed justice-driven approach and inclusive planning. To find out more about Just Resilience, stay engaged with our South-to-South Just Transitions project.
About South to South Just Transitions
South to South Just Transitions (S2S) is a multi-layered (and multi-year) initiative that supports and empowers countries in the Global South to advance research on Just Transitions in diverse national contexts. Our project currently works with research partners in nine countries to develop national recommendations for strategies on Just Transitions. The initiative aims to spearhead Just Transitions by identifying cross-cutting issues, challenges, opportunities and trends in key sectors.
Photo by Dibakar Roy on Unsplash